With a ticking clock counting down the end of the world, and the return of a hero from the distant past--will hair care still be extreme in "Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII?" Clearly, yes, as evidenced from the opening cinematic for the end of the "Final Fantasy XIII" saga, which reintroduces heroine Lightning as well as a cast of well-coiffed new characters.

With the Tokyo Game Show all wrapped up, it's been a busy week for the Square Enix team behind "Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII": trailers, intro cinematics, and new costumes aren't going to create themselves, you know.

At some point, something's probably going to kill you in this choose-your-path trailer for Techland's "Hellraid."

It's a clever gimmick, but needs a little work here: interactive "Hellraid" prequel trailer "Edyn's Escape" is set a week before the events of the upcoming game, placing you in the role of doomed monk Edyn as he attempts to avoid the forces of darkness and imminent death in a monastery full of monsters. Unfortunately, it feels like one of those choose your own adventure books where you didn't have any clues as to what was coming next, leading to frequent, frustrating deaths.

The brightest, happiest, breeziest game trailer of the day belongs to "Aer," a sandbox game from Swedish indies Forgotten Key -- and this is the kicker -- about a girl who can turn into some sort of blue thrush.

This Animorph-style hook isn't just wistful, whimsical, and imaginative -- who hasn't wanted to turn into a bird at some point? -- it also opens up all sorts of neat gameplay opportunities: unrestricted, balletic kineticism is something games tend to be really, really good at.

With their first trailer for the the oddball side scrolling horror game "Knock-Knock," developer Ice-Pick Lodge has packed in a bunch of mythology and mystery around the upcoming PC release. There's a whole backstory about receiving mysterious mails begging them to create a game based on the concept of blindly stumbling around in the dark, pursued by strangers and monsters, when all Ice-Pick Lodge really needs to do is sit someone in front of the trailer for "Knock-Knock" and they'll be interested.

When I got a chance to demo "Sonic Lost World" for the Wii U and 3DS recently, one thing I didn't get a chance to see was the 3D platformer's new bosses, the Deadly Six. According to SEGA reps, these villains--accidentally released by Sonic when he discovers the Lost World--are so tough, that our hero will have to rely on the villain Eggman to take them down.

Well, now there's a "choose-your-boss" trailer from SEGA that will let you see what you're up against in the October release.

"Nowhere," an in-development project by a German two-person studio called Duangle, is probably the most creative first-person sandbox game pitch I've ever heard. A quick and dirty comparison might be something like "Spore," but within a persistent single-player saga.